TV ratings are currently down across the board, according to the New York Times, not only affecting low-rated shows like “Community,” but also mega-hits, such as “American Idol” and “Modern Family,” which got a season-low 4.0 in the ever-important 18-49 rating last Wednesday.
In the four television weeks starting March 19, NBC lost an average of 59,000 viewers (about 3 percent) in that 18-to-49 age category compared with the same period last year, CBS lost 239,000 (8 percent), ABC lost 681,000 (21 percent) and Fox lost 709,000 (20 percent).
In the last few weeks, new viewership lows for network series have been recorded nightly among 18- to 49-year-olds, the group that still commands the highest advertising prices. (Via)
Even cable networks, which usually reap the benefits of the Big Four losing ratings, were down “409,000 viewers” during March. The article gives four explanations why this is happening: Daylight Savings Time (people are outside later — those monsters!); “Idol” ratings, which are usually so high that they boost overall TV ratings, are down 30%; a glut of late-season reruns; and “nonlinear viewing.” Meaning, most people aren’t watching TV live as much anymore — they DVR or watch online, either legally or illegally. (I watch roughly 20-25 shows per week, but only three of them live: “Game of Thrones,” “Community,” and “Mad Men.”) Hopefully networks realizing they’re potentially losing “billions of dollars in sales” is the first step toward a better ratings system than what exists now, and then we can stop worrying about the fate of shows like “Parks and Recreation.”
Either all that, or NBC canceled the sure-to-be blockbuster “The Paul Reiser Show” far too soon.
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The Nielsen model is broken. Blow it up and change the method of content delivery to focus on “On Demand.” That will give you a very clear understanding of true viewership numbers.
Stop doing business the way you did 30 years ago. It’s not the same market.
Seconded. Any other industry on the planet would have found a new model of tracking shows’ success five years ago.
I think it makes more sense to blame Daylight Savings Time, because that doesn’t happen every freakin’ year.
The Neilsen system is fucked, but I’m not so sure that it’s not relatively acccurate. I run in a fairly large social circle of upper middle class white people (35-45) and most of them watch generic crap on the networks and sports. The largest minority probably watches Mad Men. A few watch Thrones; a few watch Breaking Bad; a few watch Archer (they’re my favorites). Literally nobody I’ve discussed this with watches Community, and the only person I know that watches Justified is my dad (a 75 year old with lousy taste in TV otherwise).
I was initially shocked when WG published the cable ratings a few weks ago on the shows we discuss here at length, but the more I thought about it it made sense. We are the 1%.
By contrast, when the Charlie Sheen thing happened last year it seemed like everybody I knew watched Two & Half Men, and loved it.
I’m still wating for an explanation on how that’s possible. I can’t even watch the promos for reruns of 2.5menz on FX without changing the channel.
@stonecutter has used a hasty generalization to prove that our views on the neilsen system are based on a hasty generalization. Cool, cool, cool.
The big networks learning? That would necessitate that they’d be run by people. Not soulless automatons without the capacity to learn.
you guys realize neilsen themselves offers other metrics to the networks besides the traditional ratings? theres no lack of accounting for viewers. the reason the system is breaking down is because networks are only efficient at monetizing the traditional ratings. there is no market failure in the way viewing data is collected. either the networks will figure out a way to adjust or they’ll fail. its a process that takes decades.
if you want someone to blame for why the networks aren’t adapting faster, blame the affiliates, not neilsen. that and old people for not adopting new technologies faster.
Nielsen sends out about 25,000 surveys per year, and who knows how many actually fill theirs out and send it back. To me, that just screams “I GOT A C IN STATISTICS CLASS BUT I KNOW THAT IS A SHITTY SAMPLE SIZE”
its actually probably much larger of a sample size than it needs to be.
I forgot the internet existed before I read this article. Great read!
Eventually a network (probably cable) will come up with a better way that also includes internet streams. That network will then make a shit ton of money off of it, and others will follow.
For the networks to change, they have to see $$$.